CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 330Psychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesFibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 12 of the 13 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Cognitive behavioural therapy for medically unexplained physical symptoms: a randomised controlled trial

Open access
Speckens, Anne E M, van Hemert, Albert M, Spinhoven, Philip, Hawton, Keith E, Bolk, Jan H, Rooijmans, Harry G M·1995·BMJ
DOI 10.1136/bmj.311.7016.1328PMC PMC2551242
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the additional effect of cognitive behavioural therapy for patients with medically unexplained physical symptoms in comparison with optimised medical care. DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial with follow up assessments six and 12 months after the baseline evaluation. SETTING: General medical outpatient clinic in a university hospital. SUBJECTS: An intervention group of 39 patients and a control group of 40 patients. INTERVENTIONS: The intervention group received between six and 16 sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy. Therapeutic techniques used included identification and modification of dysfunctional automatic thoughts and behavioural experiments aimed at breaking the vicious cycles of the symptoms and their consequences. The control group received optimised medical care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The degree of change, frequency and intensity of the presenting symptoms, psychological distress, functional impairment, hypochondriacal beliefs and attitudes, and (at 12 months of follow up) number of visits to the general practitioner. RESULTS: At six months of follow up the intervention group reported a higher recovery rate (odds ratio 0.40; 95% confidence interval 0.16 to 1.00), a lower mean intensity of the physical symptoms (difference -1.2; -2.0 to -0.3), and less impairment of sleep (odds ratio 0.38; 0.15 to 0.94) than the controls. After adjustment for coincidental baseline differences the intervention and control groups also differed with regard to frequency of the symptoms (0.32; 0.13 to 0.77), limitations in social (0.35; 0.14 to 0.85) and leisure (0.36; 0.14 to 0.93) activities, and illness behaviour (difference -2.5; -4.6 to -0.5). At 12 months of follow up the differences between the groups were largely maintained. CONCLUSION: Cognitive behavioural therapy seems to be a feasible and effective treatment in general medical patients with unexplained physical symptoms.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1136/bmj.311.7016.1328

Cites

12 of 12 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 13 references

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Goldberg D .The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire. London: Oxford University Press,1972.
  2. Wing JK Cooper J Sartorius N .The measurement and classification of psychiatric symptoms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1974.
  3. Slooff, 1983, Dutch translation of the present state examination, 9th ed, I: aspects of reliability., Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie, 25, 151
  4. De Bruin, 1992, The usefulness of the sickness impact profile as a generic functional status measure., Tijdschrift voor Sociale Gezondheidszorg, 70, 160

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 330

Related

Metadata

Authors
Speckens, A. E. M., van Hemert, A. M., Spinhoven, P., Hawton, K. E., Bolk, J. H., & Rooijmans, H. G. M.
Affiliations
  • Leiden University Medical Center (NL)
  • Warneford Hospital (GB)
ORCID
Venue
BMJ
Publisher
BMJ
Published
1995-11-18
Volume
311
Issue
7016
Pages
1328-1332
ISSN
  • 0007-1447 (ISSN-L)
  • 0959-8138
  • 1468-5833
DOI
10.1136/bmj.311.7016.1328
PMC
PMC2551242
OpenAlex
W2065862867
Cited by
330
References
13
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 16
FWCI
15.75
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.bmj.com/company/legal-information/terms-conditions/legal-information/tdm-licencepolicy (tdm)
Locations
  • BMJ (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research
Keywords
cognitive behavioral therapy, medically unexplained physical symptoms, somatic symptoms, health anxiety, behavioural experiments, psychological distress, functional disability, sleep disorders, general practitioner visits, illness behavior
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Chronic Disease, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Middle Aged, Somatoform Disorders, Stress, Psychological, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Treatment Outcome

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review